• 🧑‍⚖️ Paqui Sued Over One Chip Challenge
• ⏸️ Kroger/Albertsons Request FTC Delay
• 🚫 Stop & Shop to Close 32 Stores
• 🏨 Blender Bites Gets Hospitable 
• 🤝 Bonumose to Scale Up Tagatose

It’s the stuff of entrepreneurial lore: For nearly a year, Parker Olson traversed the country in a vintage pop-up camper van, slumbering in supermarket parking lots, collecting consumer insights and building awareness for his functional granola brand, Forij. 

And now, just two years later, he is selling the business for a substantially diminished valuation. It’s not the exit most startup founders dream about – especially those who sacrifice common comforts to scale a company. However, Olson contends, “from a personal standpoint, it’s a win.” 

Here’s what happened and what he learned.

During its three-year span, Forij produced a range of granola and meal replacement bars incorporating nutrients derived from mushrooms like lion’s mane and chaga. The products were sold in somewhere between 400 and 600 stores, and revenue was approaching $1 million, Olson said.

Last summer, he knew he would need to raise capital to continue operating – “We maybe had three or four months of runway,” he said – but, despite demonstrating market traction and strong retail velocities, investors balked at his margin structure. Unable to hook any backers, he ultimately decided to list the assets for sale on BizBuySell.com and Acquire.com. 

“I now have a purchase agreement with a couple in California… and the reality is, in total they will have acquired it for a 0.1x multiple of trailing 12-month revenue,” Olson said.

The new owners will likely relaunch the brand as “a wildly different concept in a different category,” possibly in the maternal health space, Olson said. He has agreed to remain involved as an advisor.

His biggest takeaway from running a packaged food business? “It's wildly difficult to get people to part with their money – even $1. Make sure strangers are easily and readily willing to pay for your product before scaling.” 

He also recommends that founders “find a cash-flowing channel before scaling or expanding – a channel that consistently delivers growing revenue.”

Several months ago, Olson debuted his latest venture, an artificial intelligence-powered public relations startup that he said is already profitable. 

He still has the van. But these days, he sleeps comfortably in his Brooklyn apartment.

Go Deeper: Read more “lessons from loss” shared by founders who shuttered their businesses last year.

A lawsuit has been filed against Paqui tortilla chip producer The Hershey Co., as well as retailer Walgreens, and others, on behalf of the family of a Worcester, Mass., teenager, Harris Wolobah, who died last year after consuming the brand’s One Chip Challenge product. 

🫀 Earlier this year autopsy results revealed that Wolobah had a congenital heart defect and his death was caused by ingesting a high amount of peppers’ heat-inducing component capsaicin from the chip. 

🌶️ The suit alleges that Hershey designed a marketing campaign around the dangerous chip that would “attract children” while encouraging them to post themselves on social media; it also claims Walgreens sold the “poisonous chip” to children. The family is seeking $350 million in damages for the “wrongful death.”

⚠️ However, the chip packaging did come with a warning label advising against consumption by children, “anyone sensitive to spicy foods or with underlying health conditions.” While Hershey discontinued One Chip Challenge following Wolobah’s death, the product is still seemingly available for purchase on Walmart.com. 

Kroger and Albertsons have asked a judge to delay the evidentiary stage of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) case against their proposed $24.6 billion merger. 

🤔 The grocery chains claimed in a filing last week that carrying out this phase – scheduled to begin July 31 – would interfere with the defense of their mega-merger in other proceedings in Colorado, Washington and federal courts. 

⏪ The FTC filed a lawsuit to block the deal, claiming it is anti-competitive and would harm workers and consumers, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in February, alongside a bipartisan group of nine attorneys general. 

🧑‍⚖️ Following the FTC’s in-house trial, the corporations are scheduled to appear in a Denver, Colo., state court on Aug. 12, federal court in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 26, state court in Seattle, Wash., on Sept. 16 and then back to Denver on Sept. 30.

💭 From the filing: K/A claim there are 17 potentially overlapping witnesses between the FTC proceeding and the Colorado state court hearing: “These overlapping trials involve virtually identical issues.”

Go Deeper: Kroger/Albertsons vs The FTC: What Happens Next?

Ahold Delhaize-owned grocery chain Stop & Shop will shutter 32 “underperforming” stores across five states by year’s end, according to an announcement made last week. Ahold Delhaize first unveiled it would close an undisclosed number of Stop & Shop locations during an investor presentation in May. 

👀 The closures include five Connecticut stores, eight Massachusetts stores, 10 New Jersey stores, seven New York stores and two Rhode Island stores. 

💭 “Stop & Shop is focused on growing through large, multi-year price investments and a stronger customer value proposition, both in-store and online. This means we’ll be focused on delivering lower everyday prices, as well as even more savings through strong promotions,” said president Gordon Reid in a statement. 

⏪ The grocery chain has completed more than 190 store remodels since 2018 and said these stores are outperforming Stop & Shop locations that haven’t been remodeled. Stop & Shop will still operate more than 350 stores spanning the five states following the closures. 

Smoothie kit brand Blender Bites is making a break for the foodservice and hospitality channel, announcing its products will be served to guests at luxury Santa Barbara, Calif., hotel El Encanto.

🍹 The brand’s 1-step smoothie and frappes will be available to guests in Green D-Tox, Liquid Sunshine, Power Berry, Tropical Glow and Vanilla Bean Frappe varieties. 

🍽️ The partnership marks the Canadian brand’s first move into U.S. foodservice with founder and CEO Chelsie Hodge, saying this is just the start of its new channel strategy: “This is the perfect time for Blender Bites to expand into the hospitality sector and diversify its portfolio outside of grocery retailers.”

Plant-based ingredient company Roquette has joined forces with alt-sweetener startup Bonumose to “enhance the scalability” of tagatose, as reported by AgFunderNews. 

🧁 Tagatose is a proprietary low-glycemic, low-calorie sweetener containing 92% of the sweetness of regular sugar with only 38% of the calories. 

📈 The starch refiner’s relationship with Roquette is essential, said Bonumose CEO Ed Rogers; tagatose is made using the same value chain – starch, as well as equipment common to starch refining – and will provide a “realistic path forward” for industrial-scale, expandable production. 

⏪ Bonumose, whose backers include Hershey and sugar refiner ASR Group, began manufacturing tagatose at a demo-scale plant in Virginia in 2022. ASR Group began distributing the product in 2023. 

💰 More sweet food tech news: Food biotech startup Digestiva has raised $18.4 million from sugar cane processor Magdalena, among others, to scale up commercial production of its proprietary protease enzymes which has been designed to enhance protein bioavailability.